BRANDED CONTENT
How this S’porean family built a regional luxury watch empire over 50 years
The Lim family has grown Cortina Watch from a single shop at Colombo Court to a network of over 40 boutiques
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Company founder Anthony Lim has passed the baton to his two sons Jeremy (far left) and Raymond, who are the CEOs of Cortina Watch and Cortina Holdings respectively.
PHOTO: SPH MEDIA/WINSTON CHUANG
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The year 2021 was a watershed one for Cortina Holdings. In a pandemic-stricken year, the parent company of luxury watch retailer Cortina Watch forked out $84.7 million in cash to acquire the privately-held Sincere Fine Watches.
Both Mr Raymond Lim and his younger brother, Mr Jeremy Lim, were also appointed as the CEO of Cortina Holdings and the CEO of Cortina Watch respectively, laying the foundations for a new era in the family business.
Since then, the duo has been working to continue the transformation of Cortina Watch into a leading 21st century retailer, while running more than 40 stores in Southeast and East Asia.
Good as gold
A look at five decades of luxury timepiece retail at Cortina Watch
Putting the customer first, every time
At Cortina Watch, customer centricity is a business philosophy that sits at the heart of everything they do. From its earliest days in 1972 when Mr Anthony Lim, the executive chairman of Cortina Holdings, founded the business, the retailer has advocated a customer-centric, personalised retail experience.
The elder Mr Lim recalls how, when the business first launched at Colombo Court with a tiny store, he would have to deliver watches to businessmen who called and asked to see a watch.
“Back then we didn’t have a public transport system like we do today, so the most efficient way was to cycle to them,” he laughs. “I had a briefcase and if a customer called and wanted to see some watches, we’d put together a selection of a few models and bring them to their offices.”
Colombo Court was one of the first malls in Singapore’s emerging retail scene at the time. “We set up shop on High Street because that was where our customers were. The Mandarin name of the business (Gao Deng Zhong Biao) came from the department store within Colombo Court, and the English name came from the Ford Cortina, which was a popular car model at the time,” he fondly recalls.
In 1980, when Mr Raymond Lim joined the family business, he realised that Cortina Watch needed to evolve as customer demands were changing. Rather than going to the customers, Cortina Watch had to draw them in, shaping how the retailer planned for its flagship store in Raffles City Shopping Centre in 1986.
Thinking out of the box
Over the decades, Cortina Watch has experimented with various retail innovations. One of Mr Raymond Lim’s most notable projects was Espace at Millenia Walk.
“At the time we had a small 1,000 sq ft store at the mall and the adjacent unit, which was eight times the size, was empty. I suggested to my father that we create a new store concept to counter one of the retail challenges we were facing at the time, which was the allocation of retail space to individual brands,” he notes. It took a few months before Mr Anthony Lim was convinced of the idea.
Espace was a modular shop-in-shop concept where each brand would have their own space to create immersive brand experiences for customers. Espace won the “Best Retail Concept of the Year” award from the Singapore Retail Association in 2001, and the idea was expanded to other countries in Southeast Asia.
Today, the learnings from Espace have been integrated into Cortina Watch’s new store designs. “We present fewer brand selections with deeper brand experiences and products, so our customers can discover these brands at their own pace,” notes Mr Raymond Lim.
Right at the same time, Cortina Watch also launched Jewellery Time, a brainchild of Mr Raymond and Jeremy Lim.
Jewellery Time was a multi-brand public exhibition featuring high jewellery watches, a genre of timepieces that Cortina Watch realised was untouched.
“The event gave brands the opportunity to demonstrate their savoir faire in this segment and to showcase products they rarely exhibit to the public,” explains Mr Jeremy Lim. “It also gave us the opportunity to present our expertise and take the lead in this segment.”
Today, high jewellery watchmaking has become a fast-growing segment in the industry.
The digital journey
With digital experience in the watch industry gaining traction, Cortina Watch realised that it needs to once again go to its customers, and bring them to its channels.
“When we launched our e-commerce platform in 2018, the average customer was still cautious about spending five-digit sums to purchase a watch from a website, so we would recommend they visit the store to try on the watches first,” Mr Jeremy Lim shares.
“Today, we have a programme that completes the loop from online to offline and back, through a fully linked CRM system, as well as digital events such as virtual manufacture visits, through which our customers can have a glimpse of what would usually be rare opportunities reserved for special clients.”
Whether it is 1972 or 2022, Cortina Watch’s customer-first policy remains unchanged, and it looks set to guide the company to its next milestone anniversary.
Click here for more stories related to Cortina Watch's golden jubilee. To see tributes from its brand partners, go to the Cortina Watch 50th anniversary commemorative website.
